


Held

by Capucine



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Abuse, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Forced physical contact, Fucked Up, Gaslighting, Historical, M/M, Physical Abuse, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 13:25:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4921273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capucine/pseuds/Capucine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Russia reflects on his relationship with Mongolia, and why he doesn't visit as much as he used to. Basically, a history of Mongolia as a Soviet Satellite from Russia's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Held

Russia did not often visit Mongolia any more.

Their relationship had been complicated at best in the Soviet period. He still remembered, though not so vividly, his own hand in Mongolia's independence—and then his reliance on Russia himself.

It had been nice. Nice for Russia, anyway, to have someone feel like they needed him to live. Like their very being depended on him.

He still remembered early on, when Mongolia would curl up in his bed, making small noises whenever Russia jostled his wounds—though they both had wounds, of course. It was just that Mongolia's were a bit more recent. Well, to be honest, inflicted by Russia himself.

He didn't like it, or so he told himself. Didn't like having to force Mongolia to be better, be more like him. He didn't like hearing him cry or scream, and he didn't like seeing the bruises or the blood.

So he said.

Even earlier on, he still remembered sort of coming aware to a battered Mongolia. A Mongolia retching blood and pleading with him to stop.

He'd explained then. It hadn't really been him, not the real him. _He_ would never truly hurt Mongolia, he proved by his gentle hands as he bound him up. He insisted it hadn't been him, and Mongolia, far too gone to protest, weakly agreed.

When Mongolia had fought him the next day, feebly, fingernails like claws and eyes half-blinded by swelling, he'd restrained him, whispered heavily in his ears reminders that China was worse, would always be worse. That Russia himself had finally made good on his word to recognize his independence, that no one else gave a shit about Mongolia.

He'd given up. He eyed him through hazy brown eyes, hair in a horrible rat's nest.

Russia had set to work taking care of him, tried to brush out his hair and ignore his choked off whimpers until he just cut out the rat's nest with scissors and told Mongolia it would grow back.

Maybe he hadn't been kind, but that was not what Mongolia was used to anyway. It was not what Russia was used to himself, and so he couldn't very well give it. He had set to work modernizing Mongolia, making him the first friend of the Soviet Union, a rag-tag collection of him and any nation he could force in.

There were many nations near to Mongolia in Russia. He still didn't let him see them, cut off contact with Tibet, China—though of course, no contact with China was welcome.

Mongolia had begged for Tibet, though, begged to be allowed to continue their friendship.

Russia had realized in that moment that Tibet was the only friend that Mongolia had in the world. He had realized that Mongolia might just crumble without the assurances of his peaceful friend.

So he'd cut the ties. Discouraged—very heavily—the religion that the nation had converted Mongolia to. 

There was a new god, and even though Mongolia repeated he had no god, he recognized the need to worship this new god: the state. Russia's power in his life.

It had been painful to watch Mongolia starve. Changing how he herded his animals made him not have enough food, but despite the fact Mongolia had done things his way for possibly millennia, Russia knew better. He was modern, he had the words of Marx and other great thinkers in his head, and Mongolia would just have to trust him while he gnawed his fingers enough to bleed as he tried to stave off the hunger pangs.

Russia knew hunger. Mongolia would survive, and come out who he wanted him to be.

There had been some fighting early on. First decade or so.

He'd say to this, and Mongolia would resist. He might resist doing something, or he might physically resist being moved or touched. But that was Russia's right, and so after he struck him with whatever was handiest, or his fist, he'd press his hand against the side of Mongolia's face, hold him there, tell him gently that he was only taking care of him and did he want to go back to China? China was worse, China would violate him in ways Russia would never. He would make him disappear, did he not remember the whispers of a plan to exterminate his entire race in the Qing days?

There had been tears during this treatment earlier on. Soon enough, there were just dead eyes, staring straight ahead and waiting to be released.

Soon enough, there was no more resistance.

Mongolia was fit for company after the war. He'd been brave, joining with Russia to fight Japan away from his borders and look Japan wanted to hurt him too, he'd be so lost without Russia, steamrolled. Russia took the knowledge from him necessary to protect his troops from the cold. He didn't say thank you.

But after the war, he brought him around sometimes to see the new satellite states. The satellites were rebellious, didn't understand that they needed to depend on Russia too.

Mongolia would only sit when told, would smile at them when told, would make polite conversation when told, which was rare.

They just stared at him in horror, like they were seeing a macabre puppet or some distorted future vision of themselves. Well, it had been true, that had been Russia's aim, to an extent. He didn't quite get there with them.

He only remembered catching Mongolia disobeying once.

Poland, the eternal phoenix and ever so long a thorn in any conqueror's side, especially Russia's, was trying to talk to him. Kept insisting that he could tell him anything, that what had happened to him was 'totally messed up' and 'that fat bastard isn't around.'

Mongolia had only said one thing: 'I can't. I'm scared.'

Poland had tried to hug him, ever one to offer affection in dire situations, but Mongolia had fought free and disappeared. Russia had found him in the bathroom not too long after, door unlocked and seated on the closed toilet.

He was wordless, not looking at Russia. 

But Russia left it alone this time. Just this time.

When he visited him again, he held him close every night. He knew Mongolia hated it, but he would make him want it. Need it. Just as much as Russia himself needed a warm body to hold close to his chilled one.

He was stiff as a board, but as the days went on and he had to sleep, he progressively relaxed. Got used to sharing the space with Russia, which must have been difficult for someone as needy for wide open spaces as Mongolia was. He never fought him over it, but the first few nights Russia had caught him trying to wriggle out of the hold when he thought Russia was asleep. Russia had partially suffocated him with a pillow, kept pressing down until Mongolia got feeble in his struggles, and then allowed air.

He stopped trying to move away in the night after that.

It was several decades into the relationship that things flared up between him and China. Where at first, Russia would have described their relationship as a tense, flirtatious, potential partnership, the falling out was horrible.

It almost pushed them into war.

The anxiety, as Russia whispered into Mongolia's ear that maybe China would take him, that if they went to war this was the place that China would go first, was enough to bring Mongolia to a breakdown sometime into it. Russia was there to comfort him, to promise that he would always take care of him.

Hate China for putting him in this position, he told him. China was the root of all evil in Mongolia's life; look at the history. Look at the way he had pressed him down into relative poverty, the way he wanted him gone completely; the way he still held on to so much of the old lands of the Mongols.

Look at the way China looked at him during their meetings, like a chunk of meat to be torn into.

Mongolia had almost clung to him at night then, body shaking with the terrors manufactured into his mind. He would never have been able to be influenced like this in the old days, the empire days; it was a wonder what centuries of degradation did to a nation.

It was a wonder what a few decades of terror did to anyone.

They'd gone to Mexico City for the Olympics. It was the first time Russia had seen Mongolia win anything at these games, a puny single silver medal and three bronze. All in wrestling, unsurprisingly.

But he clutched those medals like they were all golds, and if Russia didn't know better, he thought he saw tears in the corners of his eyes. It was only the nation's second Olympic games.

Russia made sure the other nation saw all the medals he had, not just silvers and bronzes, but golds in numbers greater than any Mongolia had.

Mongolia had cringed at Russia's anger at Czechoslovakia (or Czech and Slovakia, though he suspected he knew who the instigator was), had moved like he expected to be the one hit. That had lightened Russia's mood just a bit, and he merely instructed them to make an outcast of the offending gymnast.

They were still sore about the invasion, and they still had that sour downturn to their mouths. But Mongolia knew how to act around Russia, and they would learn too.

Not too long after, Russia had to be at Mongolia's house again, China was making threats that may or may not be followed through on. He'd officially accepted Mongolia's independence a couple decades ago, in return for Soviet assistance against Japan, but as always, he felt he had a special right to the nomadic nation.

It had been slow-building, this fight between him and China. Russia stopped sending food to Albania for not following his particular Communist ideology; China immediately started sending the nation food. 

Russia had shown support of Tibet when he tried to rise up against China, to spite him.

It had really culminated in a fight in Romania's house, where they were having a Communist conference of sorts. The poor other nations had cringed in the background as they screamed at each other. Russia had screamed, “Deviationist!” while China had screamed back, “Revisionist!”

It had ended with Russia reading aloud an eighty-page letter at the conference about how China was deviating from true Communist ideology, and how he was a war-monger and general fool.

They argued loudly whenever they were together, and often when they weren't. But they weren't going to split just then.

Russia would say he was too aggressive, that they needed peace or there would be a nuclear war; China would push back that Marxist theory insisted upon the inevitability of war between the Communists and the Capitalists, and he was avoiding the Revolution necessary. Russia drily responded that if all they had to offer the workers was revolution, he thought they'd much rather have a good goulash.

They hadn't talked for a little while after that.

Then, they broke things off, and it came nearly to blows.

Not long before approaching Mongolia's borders (and Russia's), China had ever so politely requested an apology for injustice against the Chinese people. What he meant, of course, was the border established back during Qing times that he had been forced to sign.

During these tense times, Mongolia fell sick with a fever. Despite being delirious, he did not rave or rant or do any of the things Russia had seen other nations do in sickness. Instead, he admitted things he should not have.

'I'm sorry, I nearly went with China, I couldn't decide.'

'China was so kind before. Why is he doing this now?'

'Please don't leave me, I'm scared.'

He said it in a quiet, fever-soft voice, but Russia realized he had to make sure Mongolia understood that China was to be feared, the horrible alternative to Russian rule.

He didn't raise hands against Mongolia again, even when he got better and did not know about his confessions. Instead, he fed him lie after lie about China, and what he really wanted from Mongolia.

He wanted him back, yes, that was truth, he had been asking for years. But what he really wanted was to violate all sense of Mongolian culture. He wanted it destroyed, and remember when he helped build all those things in Mongolia's house, and then abruptly left to teach him a lesson? He was manipulative, outright abusive.

China wanted to make him Chinese, like Inner Mongolia was turning, Mongolia's rightful other half. China wanted to do things unspeakable to Mongolia, things Russia would never ever do. Remember, Russia had never been anything but kind, Russia had saved him from domination by China, those scars were from China and his trying to destroy Mongolian culture and break Mongolia down into his place.

Remember, Mongolia had asked Russia to come here, to protect him, they'd signed a treaty.

He still remembered finding Mongolia seated by himself outside the little city house that he hated so much, arms wrapped around his knees as he muttered to himself, 'They're right, they're right, I'm not a real nation...'

Russia ignored it.

However, the winds of change were in motion, and soon enough, Russia was called away from Mongolia.

Maybe, he decided as he made his changes, it was time to let go. In some ways, he had quite liked Mongolia, quite liked the way he'd been molded into a warm body to hold, an appendage of his. A thorn in China's side despite never doing anything to warrant aggression during his years as a Soviet satellite.

But, as he shifted into not being the Soviet Union, as everyone left, he cast Mongolia aside too.

Or maybe he wasn't cast aside. Maybe, in the face of Russia's shutting him out completely, he had taken the opportunity with shaking hands to be free.

Whatever the case, Mongolia was his own nation not long after the others were gone.

Russia had declared, a little tightly, that Mongolia was on his own now.

And Mongolia had replied, also tightly, that Mongolia would do its best to maintain friendly relations with both Russia and China. In complete balance.

Yes, Russia did not visit Mongolia very much anymore. Mostly, he heard the distressed nation's assertions that China was trying to poison him with his food, or saw his nerves get the best of him as he agonized over how to balance such huge and powerful neighbors.

Yet, whenever Russia tried to pull him to his chest, he still firmly pulled away. Firmly asserted, with his hard eyes, that he was not to be touched or forced to do anything he didn't want to.

And Russia guessed that was why he didn't visit so much anymore.


End file.
